Community Service Opportunities
INTRA – Israel National Therapeutic Riding Association
A registered non-profit organization located in Hadassah Neurim Village that helps mentally and physically challenged adults, children, survivors of terror and injured soldiers.
Some of our disabled riders require a leader and two side walkers to help them remain balanced during the lesson. Volunteers can fulfill both roles; the leader keeps the horse at a safe and even pace while the side walkers help by either supporting the rider or assisting the instructor.
One can sponsor the lessons of a child, a family member, a survivor, or a wounded soldier. One could also donate a horse, contribute to the upkeep of a horse, or dontate a saddle and bridle. Scholarships are also needed.
Tikvah - Rehabilitation of Terror Victims through Sport
More than 8000 Israelis were wounded in terrorist attacks since 2000. To help them regain hope, the joy of life and the will to win, Maccabi World Union created PROJECT TIKVAH
We provide specialized sports/fitness programs with special equipment and specially qualified instructors. Your donation helps us to help them.
100% run by volunteers, donations 100% to action, a unique service
Please show your support and generosity by donating to Project Tikvah
For further details contact Simone by email.
Project Tikva Bar-Bat Mitzvah Flyer
The Jaffa Institute
The Jaffa Institute was founded twenty years ago by Col. Zonik Shaham and Dr. David Portowicz, two visionary men who determined that the blighted, dangerous streets of Jaffa needed a place where children could play without fear or harm.
Over the next several years, the Jaffa Institute continued to expand its reach and diversify its programs to meet the needs of hundreds of needy children in Jaffa and beyond.
Today, the Jaffa Institute serves over 4,000 children through more than 30 educational, recreational and social support programs and services. The Jaffa Institute was officially recognized for its twenty years of caring and commitment by being awarded as the Most Outstanding Voluntary Organization by the President of Israel, in formal ceremonies in Jerusalem in July 2001.
AMIT – Americans for Israel and Torah
AMIT is a non-profit organization that enables Israel's youth to realize their potential. AMIT strengthens Israeli society by educating and nurturing children from diverse backgrounds within a framework of academic excellence, religious values and Zionist ideals. AMIT's 16,000 children come largely from impoverished and/or dysfunctional families.
Bar and Bat Mitzvah Twinning program offers the opportunity to have the approaching Bar or Bat Mitzvah child bond with an AMIT child in Israel, who is also preparing for this special day.
This opportunity will add a dimension of Tzedakah to your child's celebration and provide an underprivileged child in Israel with the memories of a lifetime. Your child receives a bronze State of Israel medal, a personalized Twinning certificate, and the name and address of his or her "twin." The AMIT child receives a Bar or Bat Mitzvah celebration, a personalized Twinning Certificate, and a complete Hebrew/English Bible published by Koren.
Torah Trek - Spiritual Wilderness Adventures
Make your son or daughter’s initiation into Jewish adulthood the most positive and memorable experience of their young life. Join Torah Trek for an intimate ceremony in nature that reflects Judaism’s deepest values, and yours!
Yad Sarah
Yad Sarah's mission is to keep the ill and the elderly in their homes and out of institutions as long as possible. Home care in the natural environment of the family is most conducive to healthy recuperation, both physically and emotionally.
Yad Sarah's best-known service is the lending of medical and rehabilitative equipment on a short-term basis free of charge to anyone who needs it.
Yad Sarah provides a wide range of other services, including transportation and day care centers for the disabled, drop-in centers and minimum-charge dental clinics for the elderly, personal computerized emergency alarms monitored 24 hours a day, and guidance/exhibition centers which help disabled people choose the assistive devices most suited to their needs.
Men and women from all walks of life, young and old, rich and poor, from every religious and ethnic background, give of their time to volunteer at Yad Sarah. The spectrum of services Yad Sarah provides lets each person who wants to help find an area of volunteering that suits him or her.
Aleh - Society of Blind and Dyslexic Students in Israel
The volunteer activities in the Center include reading and giving auxiliary classes, recording texts in different languages, helping in mobility and orientation, helping with computers, equipment maintenance, braille studies and more. We're sure you can take part in these activities and gain a unique experience of mutual productivity.
Our goal is to promote education, specifically for the blind, the visually impaired and the dyslexic, in order to help them advance in Israeli society.
CHAI – Concern for Helping Animals in Israel
Low-cost spaying and neutering via a mobile spay/neuter clinic - Co-sponsor training for vets with Israel's Ministry of Agriculture. Our list of volunteer activities include the following: Co-sponsor, with Interniche, a lending library of alternatives to replace animal use in classrooms - Offer a grant to develop alternatives to replace animal use in research and training - Campaign against specific cruelties, including strychnine poisonings – Construct a Humane Education Center at the SPCA in Israel, in Tel Aviv - Raise funds to construct a horse/donkey sanctuary.
SPNI – Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel
Make a personal connection with Israel and its natural beauty by taking a day trip to go on an excursion with this environmental organization.
Neve Shalom
A village in Israel established jointly by Jews and Palestinian Arabs of Israeli citizenship and engaged in educational work for peace, equality and understanding between the two peoples.
The village demonstrates the possibility of coexistence between Jews and Palestinians by developing a community based on mutual acceptance, respect and cooperation.
Basic program
- Introductory lecture about our special community
- Guided tour in the village.
- Discussion with refreshments
- Visit our bilingual bi-national school
Optional items
- Accommodation at our guesthouse and meals can also be reserved if the group wishes
- Enjoy our swimming pool (in summer time)
- Workshop – “Shedding light” a story telling workshop on culture conflict.
The basic program and volunteer work in gardening or olive picking (during the season October-November).
Table to Table - Israel’s Food Rescue Network
Serving as Israel's umbrella organization for "food-rescue," Table to Table collects excess, unsold food from catered events, corporate cafeterias, army bases, food manufacturers, grocers, farms, and packing houses and delivers the food to non-profit agencies throughout Israel that serve those in need.
Table to Table was started by volunteers, and volunteers fuel its success today. All our volunteers do it for the same reason; they want to help people in need. Join the front lines of the fight against hunger - become a Table to Table volunteer. There are many ways to put your talents to use. You determine your own time commitment.
Shalva - Association for Mentally & Physically Challenged Children in Israel
It provides developmentally disabled children with a loving environment that helps them reach their potential and gives the parents the ability to keep them home, within the family.
It is at Shalva where hundreds of Israeli teenagers and American overseas students serving as volunteers learn the joy of giving and discover that they truly can make a difference and change the world for the better. And it is at Shalva where donors are given an opportunity to provide for society's most vulnerable - and in so doing demonstrate the moral strength and fiber of the world community.
Schneider Children’s Medical Center of Israel
Schneider Children's is the only highly specialized medical care center of its kind in Israel and the Middle East. The hospital provides modern and complex medical services and represents a new era in pediatric medicine in Israel due to its high standards of medical excellence.
Since children have different emotional and physical resources for healing, medical approaches emphasize the healthy aspects of the child’s life, which greatly enhance the healing process.
Join Schneider Children’s Bar and Bat Mitzvah Program and help save children's lives. By linking your simcha with the needs of less fortunate youngsters hospitalized in Schneider Children’s Medical Center of Israel, you can perform a double mitzvah. Jewish tradition views philanthropy, “tzedaka”, as a righteous deed and a just activity. Tzedaka not only provides you with a sense of personal involvement, but also with the power to make a difference – such a difference in fact, that it can mean life or death.
American Friends of Alyn Hospital
Our mission is to support Israel’s premiere rehabilitation center for physically handicapped children, adolescents and young adults. ALYN Hospital combines expertise and love so each patient and family can meet the challenges of living with disabilities and achieve the highest possible level of mobility and independence.
Alyn is a non-profit organization treating babies, children, adolescents and young adults, regardless of religion or ethnic background.
Your mitzvah project can be a VIRTUAL WALK to ALYN HOSPITAL in JERUSALEM. Walk because you CAN for children who CANNOT!
Invite friends, family and community members to join you in raising just $1 a mile for the distance between where you live and Jerusalem. The dollars you raise will help insure that every child who comes to Alyn for their unique rehabilitation will reach their highest possible level of mobility, function and independence!
American Friends of Magen David Adom
Magan David Adom (MDA) and its team of trained volunteer and professional medical responders provides the entire nation's pre-hospital emergency medical needs including medical, disaster, ambulence, and blood services. It is essentially the equivalent to the American Red Cross.
The best way to help if you are only in Israel for a short time is to provide monetary donations. Consider raising money with friends and family in honor of your Bar Mitzvah / Bat Mitzvah to donate to this reputable organization.
Further information on the AFMDA can be found on their website: www.afmda.org
Ilan - Israel Sports Center for the Disabled
Israel Sports Center for the Disabled is the first sport center for the disabled in the country and a world pioneer in the field. The Center, which specializes in the physical and psychological rehabilitation of Israeli children and youth, opened its gates in the 1960 in order to encourage disabled kids, youth and adults to take part in sports activities.
Sports activities contribute more to the confidence, morale, and self-image of the disabled than any other form of rehabilitation. The spirit and motivation of sport is used as a means to help guide the disabled from a state of helplessness to productive, fulfilling lives.
You can contribute to the center in a number of ways. Monetary donations are always welcome, but you can also volunteer in a number of different facets in the organization. Most of all you can adopt an athlete to have a real and lasting effect on one of the Center's clients. Find the contact below to begin your community service:
David N. Pincus, Hon. National President
US Friends of Israel Sport Center for the Disabled
P.O. Box 1319
Philadelphia, PA 19105-1319
Tel. 215-922-1780
Fax: 215-922-1782
Website: http://www.iscd.com/default.asp?LangCode=eng
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